La Vigilia: The Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes

If you want to understand the Italian American Christmas, go on Christmas Eve. La Vigilia di Natale — the vigil — is the great Italian and Italian American feast of the evening before Christmas, a meal of fish and seafood served over many hours in observance of the Roman Catholic custom of abstaining from meat on the eve of a feast day. In its most famous American form, it is the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a ritualized dinner of seven (or thirteen) different seafood dishes that has become one of the great Italian American entertaining traditions.

**Origins**

As Wikipedia records, the Feast of the Seven Fishes (Festa dei sette pesci) is an Italian American celebration of Christmas Eve with dishes of fish and other seafood. Christmas Eve is a vigil or fasting day, and the abundance of seafood reflects the observance of abstinence from meat until the feast of Christmas Day itself. The tradition stems from the Roman Catholic observance of abstaining from eating meat on the eve of a feast day; as no meat or animal fat could be used on such days, observant Catholics would instead eat fish, typically fried in oil. The tradition of a Christmas Eve meal of seven or thirteen fishes has been well documented in southern Italy — especially in Calabria and Sicily — and it was southern Italian and Sicilian immigrants who carried the tradition to America, where it took on its most elaborate form.

**The Number**

The number seven is the source of endless debate and meaning. As Eataly notes, the number may refer to the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church, the seven days of creation, or the seven hills of Rome — or, more simply, to the perfection and completeness the number represents. Some families serve thirteen fishes, representing Jesus and the twelve apostles. In practice, the count varies: many families serve seven dishes, some serve thirteen, and many serve simply an abundance of seafood without counting, the meaning in the abundance itself.

**The Table**

The Vigilia table is an extravaganza of the sea. The dishes vary by region and family, but the classics include baccala — salt cod, the great preserved fish of the Italian table, served in mantecato, in salad, or fried; calamari fritti, fried calamari; smelts, fried whole; clams and mussels, in pasta or on the half shell; scungilli, conch in a garlicky sauce; shrimp, grilled or in a fra diavolo; and the great pasta of the night, linguine alle vongole, linguine with clams. The meal unfolds in courses over the evening, ending, in many households, just in time to leave for midnight Mass.

**How to Host One**

To host a Vigilia, plan a menu of seven (or more) fish courses, paced across the evening. Begin with the cold and the fried — a baccala mantecato, fried calamari, fried smelts — move to the pastas (linguine with clams, spaghetti with lobster), and finish with a whole baked fish (branzino) or a shellfish stew. Serve with crisp white wines — a Vermentino, a Greco di Tufo, or a Pinot Grigio — and the Italian holiday breads and cookies. The point is not the precise count but the abundance, the slow pace, and the gathering of the family on the holiest eve of the Italian calendar.

**Why It Matters**

La Vigilia is the great Italian American entertaining tradition — a feast that turns abstention into abundance, that honors the faith of the immigrants who brought it, and that gathers the family around the table on the most important night of their year. To host the Feast of the Seven Fishes is to keep alive one of the great cultural rituals of the Italian American table.

**References**

- Wikipedia: Feast of the Seven Fishes — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feast_of_the_Seven_Fishes

- Eataly: The Origin of the Feast of Seven Fishes — https://www.eataly.com/us_en/magazine/culture-and-tradition/origin-feast-seven-fishes

- Paesana: Feast of the Seven Fishes — An Italian American Christmas Eve Legacy — https://www.paesana.com/blog/feast-of-the-seven-fishes-an-italian-american-christmas-eve-legacy